U.s. Wants To Widen Ban On Smoking

WASHINGTON -- Smoking should be banned in restaurants, offices, schools and any building where the general public draws a breath, Rep. Henry Waxman said on Wednesday.

EPA Administrator Carol Browner had some further advice: If you must smoke, quit doing it at home, in a car, around children or anywhere indoors.

In fact, they said, the only suitable place for smokers is outdoors, away from crowds and doorways -- unless smokers can find secluded rooms with their own ventilation systems.

The two officials took steps on Wednesday toward putting their hopes into practice, part of a continuing government campaign to fight secondhand tobacco smoke.

``Please help us protect children from cigarette smoking,`` Browner said in testimony to a congressional subcommittee. ``It does affect them, and we have a responsibility to protect them.``

Browner released an EPA public advisory on secondhand smoke. It warns people to avoid smoking indoors, in enclosed cars and around children.

As part of the same campaign, President Clinton plans to sign an executive order banning smoking in all federal buildings, Browner said. And the Justice Department moved to dismiss a tobacco industry lawsuit that challenges an EPA report that says secondhand smoke is dangerous.

Then came Waxman`s announcement: In his role as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, he said he would introduce legislation to ban smoking from all public and commercial buildings, except in rooms with separate ventilation.

``This is a bold step, but its premise is simple: smokers do not have the right to jeopardize the health of nonsmokers, particularly children,`` said Waxman, D-Calif.

Once introduced, Waxman`s bill would have to win approval by the House and Senate plus President Clinton -- a lengthy process with likely opposition at every step by the tobacco industry.

Tobacco companies and House members from tobacco-growing states sternly disputed the EPA`s conclusions and accused the agency of showing an anti- smoking bias.

Secondhand smoke -- also called ``environmental smoke`` -- comes from the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar and from smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers.

The EPA estimates that environmental smoke each year causes between 150,000 and 300,000 lower-respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months. An EPA report in January concluded that it also causes 3,000 deaths from lung cancer each year.

Florida, Browner`s home state, already has a Clean Indoor Air Act that bans smoking in all common areas of public places such as schools, hospitals and public buildings.

But designated non-smoking areas may not be enough, Browner said.

``While separating smokers and non-smokers in the same area, such as an office, may reduce exposure, non-smokers may still be exposed to recirculated smoke and drifting smoke,`` she said.

But tobacco-industry supporters accused the EPA of using bad science and scare tactics.

``The agency`s propensity to scare the public first and ask scientific questions later is both notorious and well documented,`` said Rep. Thomas Bliley Jr., R-Va.

Bliley and colleagues from North Carolina and Georgia said the EPA study used lower-than-usual statistical standards for drawing conclusions.

``There appears to have been a conscious misuse of the scientific process to achieve a political agenda that could not otherwise be justified,`` Bliley said.

And Gio Gori, a consultant for the Tobacco Institute, said the EPA`s study ``is a political figment of imagination supported by unwarranted assumptions, selective use of data, artful procedural manipulations and the contrived illusion of mathematical precision.``